I was a little nervous, however, when we helped team up the Pioneer Woman with Microsoft Office 07 for a Microsoft Office 07 give-away back in December. It didn’t seem to have that obvious “endemic” fit. The Pioneer Woman’s audience put me at ease fast, though, when 7451 of them entered the contest in a week. (Here are the winners.)

a few years ago — inspired by something Battelle wrote — that certain brands can create an “endemic relationship” with readers of a publication even if they aren’t “endemic advertisers,” those who’s products match up exactly with the content covered by a publication.

Back in July, the American Dairy Council teamed up with the Pioneer Woman on dairy-based recipes. Perhaps you’ve stumbled across some of them if, like me, you’ve been searching the web for a chocolate milk recipe. The Pioneer Woman’s recipe is in the #4 position, out of the 585,000 results found by Google. Nice move, Dairy Council!

“Heather Armstrong’s wickedly funny blog about motherhood, Dooce, is more than just an outlet for the creativity and frustrations of a modern mother. The site, chock full of advertising, is a moneymaking machine — so much so that Ms. Armstrong and her husband have both quit their regular jobs…. advertisers are eager to influence the 850,000 readers, mostly women, who avidly follow Ms. Armstrong’s adventures. Although Ms. Armstrong will not disclose exact numbers, Dooce’s revenue this year is on track to be seven times its size in 2006, according to Federated Media, which sells ads for the blog.”

JCPenney’s Linden Street line has teamed up with a half dozen FM authors to create the Home Style Guide, a group blog that pulls high-style decorating posts — chairs to build a room around or a DIY wood clock, for example — from Craftzine, Cool Mom Picks, Dooce, the Pioneer Woman, NOTCOT and others. JCPenney is the exclusive sponsor of the site (though they don’t control the editorial content), like they were last year on a similar site, FM’s Fall Shopping Guide. Featured Linden Street products are promoted down the left-hand column.

This expansion of the concept JCPenney piloted last fall suggests the “converational marketing” approach is working for them. Additional press on the earlier program:

Abbey Klaassen covered it for Ad Age, which requires registration so here’s a summary at ChasNote.

I forget who first used the phrase “Oprah of Oklahoma” for Ree the Pioneer Woman, but it works for me.

Not that the Pioneer Woman is the richest woman in America, nor does she dominate daytime television. But, like Oprah, she’s built a relationship with her fans that is cult-like in its fervor. When Oprah gives away Pontiacs, it’s national news; when the Pioneer Woman posts recipes featuring dairy products (as part of a sponsorship by the Dairy Council to promote 3-A-Day of Dairy), hundreds of readers comment on every post. This lasagna recipe, for example, elicited nearly 400 comments.

Ree, got any tips for little ol’ ChasNote??

(Credits: Matt Trotta at FM worked with the crew at Edelman on this sponsorship.)

Ree’s Confessions of a Pioneer Woman is among several hip-young-women sites included in a conversational marketing campaign for Nintendo’s Wii. This week she replaced her “Give This Picture A Caption” contest with a “Share An Embarrassing Moment and Win a Wii” contest. She posted the contest today at 3pm Pacific; as I write this, 5pm Pacific, her readers have submitted 1357 embarrassing stories. (UPDATE 2/8: By 9pm yesterday when she closed the contest, 2992 stories had been entered.) Ree’s readers want their Wiis!